Sweetgrass (21 page)

“You fool,” she murmured, looking deeper into her own eyes. “You poor old fool.”

In the stifling attic, reading the words over and over, she’d broken through her girlish imaginings at long last and read what Tripp had truly told her between the lines. A simple truth she’d stubbornly refused to acknowledge.

Tripp had never really loved her.

NONA PULLED THE DAMASK
tablecloth from the ironing basket and fingered the fine linen. Age had rendered it soft as butter—and about as yellow. She couldn’t count all the Sunday dinners this old fabric had seen, or the birthdays, anniversaries and graduations. A lifetime of milestones were recorded on this heirloom. She remembered old Mrs. Blakely crying like a baby in the kitchen when a guest spilled an entire glass of red wine on it. But Nona had worked with the fabric, day after day, gently, firmly, teasing the stain out. This tablecloth had been with the Blakely family for longer than she had. What stories this piece of linen could tell!

What stories she could tell.

She carefully spread the damask over her ironing board, smoothing out the wrinkles with her hands. Sixty-eight years she’d been connected to the Blakelys. Forty of those she’d been their housemaid. Four decades of caring for their house,
meals, heirlooms…and the stains, she thought ruefully as she plucked away lint and a few black strands of dog hair from the linen. Her gaze caressed the fabric she knew better than anyone, even Mary June. So many stains she’d cleaned up over the years, each with a story of its own, and not a one could be seen. Her mother had taught her that part of a housemaid’s duty was never to talk about the family, and Nona knew she’d done her job faithfully.

She licked her finger and tested the iron—it was plenty hot. Then, reaching over to switch on the radio to her favorite channel, she settled into the task. She loved to iron. The rhythmic motion was soothing and gave her time to reflect.

The kitchen windows were open to the sea and a fan whirred nearby, stirring the air. She knew in a few weeks—maybe even days—they’d be forced by humidity and mosquitoes to close up the windows and turn on the air-conditioning. So she relished these last few mornings of spring when she could stand before the open window with honeysuckle and jasmine in the air and a good baseball game on the radio.

She’d just touched the iron to the fabric when Morgan walked into the room. He was wearing frayed khakis and a faded navy polo. His brown hair was damp and slicked back, and he smelled of fresh soap. He’d probably just cleaned up from his run. She looked at his shabby appearance and wondered why she even bothered ironing his pants.

“Here comes trouble,” she said in greeting.

He grinned with affection and swooped to kiss her cheek. “Good morning, gorgeous.” He lifted his nose, sniffing. “Is that coffee I smell?”

“A fresh pot.”

“That’s my girl.” He went for his quarry as straight and true as his granddaddy’s bird dog. “Can I pour you a cup?”

Nona shook her head. “I’ve got mine. But you can top it off.”

“Who’s playing?” he asked, referring to the ball game on the radio.

“The Cubs.”

“Chicago? You’re still following them?”

She’d loved the Cubs ever since her brothers took her to a game when she visited them in Chicago soon after they’d moved there. She saw Ernie Banks hit two home runs and had been a fan ever since. Over the years she’d broken at least two irons with the whoopla she made whenever the Cubs hit a homer.

“Once a Cubbie, always a Cubbie. You can turn it off. They’re losing.”

He flicked off the radio and brought the coffeepot over to fill her cup. The tablecloth caught his attention.

“You know, I think some of my best memories were sitting in this kitchen watching you iron that tablecloth.”

Nona’s face softened with the memory. As she watched Morgan settle his long frame into a nearby chair, she recalled the young boy, thin as a rail with curls as tight as nap in the humidity, who came every day to her kitchen just to be with her. Sometimes she’d be ironing, or cooking, or baking—it was his job to lick the bowl. They’d talk about nothing in particular, but in between the lines Nona knew the boy needed a refuge where he could talk openly without worry or censure. After Hamlin’s death, the kitchen was their sanctuary. Even as a teenager, a time when most boys would clam up tight, once Morgan crossed the threshold, he would loosen his tongue with her. She’d always chuckle to herself when folks remarked on how quiet Morgan was.

This boy was the reason she’d stayed as long as she did at Sweetgrass, and when he’d left, she left soon after.

“How long do you figure you’ve been ironing that tablecloth?” Morgan asked her.

“Funny you should ask. I was just wondering that myself. Too long to count, but somewhere around forty years.”

“Sounds like a jail sentence to me.”

“With time off for good behavior.”

His smile turned serious. “It means a lot to me, to all of us, that you came back to help us out now. Even for a short while.”

Nona pressed the iron to cloth. “I couldn’t let anyone else tend to this tablecloth, now, could I?”

“You started working here as a girl, didn’t you?”

“I used to come here with my mama, back when she worked here,” Nona said, her arm pushing the iron back and forth in a steady rhythm. “Mostly I played with your daddy and Adele. We had some good times fishing in the creek and hunting lizards. I reckon I started working here part-time when I come of age, and by the time I was eighteen, I was full-time. A few years later your mother come here.”

He grinned. “So you both started serving time together.”

Nona cackled and shook her head.

“What was she like back then?”

Nona spritzed the linen. The droplets of water fell in a splay pattern.

“Your mother was a good woman,” she answered truthfully. “Kindhearted. Maybe too softhearted for her own good. Anyone could see she was a real lady, and everyone who met her loved her.”

“She seems so tired lately,” he commented. “She’s taking on too much.”

Nona had seen the circles under Mary June’s eyes, but didn’t think it was the routine. Morgan had circles under his eyes, too. There was a lot going on under the surface in this family. She sighed. Same as always.

“She’s not sleeping so well,” she replied.

Morgan accepted that without comment. “What about Daddy? What was he like when he was young?”

Nona fixed her eyes on the man. So, he’d come with a purpose, she realized. He’d been gone a long while. And now that his daddy was sick, he was fishing for a few answers before it was too late. He knew that she was the only one who could give them.

“You’ve seen pictures,” she answered, sidestepping.

His fingers tapped the cup in frustration. “I know what he looked like. But what was he
like?
”

She set down her iron. “Your daddy was a gentleman and the strongest man I’ve ever met. And I’m not talking about brute strength. He was as steady and firm as steel.”

“And as inflexible.”

“Sometimes,” she agreed good-naturedly. “Sometimes he had to be. When his daddy died, he left him this property and a lot of debt. Those were lean times. Everyone thought his brother, Tripp, was the strong one. But he wasn’t. It was your daddy that carried the weight of this family. This place.” She paused. “Same as you.”

Morgan’s head shot up. “I’m not like him at all.”

Nona scoffed and began ironing again.
You’re a carbon copy,
she thought to herself.

“I’m not!” he stubbornly said to her silence.

“If you say so.”

She continued ironing while Morgan brooded over his coffee.

“If you want to know who your daddy is,” she said, “you might go visit with him and find out for yourself.”

“I do visit him. Every morning,” he muttered, not looking up from his cup.

“You go in to get the dog!”

“Hey, Blackjack needs his exercise. No one else will do it,” he said defensively.

“I have no problem with you exercising the dog, Morgan. But don’t go pretending that you’re visiting with your father,” she scolded. “You don’t stop to talk to him, or spend any time with him at all. It’s like you can’t wait to leave the room.”

Morgan lifted his chin to look at her with a haunted expression. “I’m doing my duty trying to keep this place afloat. Let’s leave it at that.”

“You could try, is all I’m saying.”

“I have tried!” he exploded. “All my life! I’m done with that. Look, I love him. He’s my father. It’s taken me years to accept that we just don’t get along, okay?”

She put down the iron and narrowed her eyes. “You have to let the past go, Morgan. You’re not a boy any longer. You’re a man.”

“There are some things you can’t let go of. Besides, there’s no talking with him. He doesn’t listen.”

“You can’t ever guarantee that what you say to anybody will be heard. But you’ve never had a better chance of having your father sit there and listen.”

“Oh, boy, that’s a sick joke.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. He’s eager for your company. I see it in his eyes. How can it hurt to just sit there with him for a while?”

“It’s too late. It wouldn’t change anything.”

She threw up her hands, lest she wring his neck with them. “Everything’s changed, fool! Think, Morgan. At last you can tell him what you really want to say and he can’t stop you.”

“That’s making him a victim, isn’t it? I mean, forcing him to sit there while I go on and on.”

“I know you. It’s not in you to be mean. What this is, Morgan, is a second chance, a chance to change how things
are. Because your father will be forced to listen. And you’ll be forced to speak. I’m old and I know, second chances don’t come every day.”

“I have nothing to say to him,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

“The hell you don’t!”

“You sound like Kristina,” he said, more to his coffee.

That caught her attention. She paused, her mind speculating. “She after you about this, too?”

“Yeah. Only she’s nicer about it.”

Nona chortled and thought,
good for her.
“She’s a nice girl,” she said, returning to her work so that she didn’t seem too intent. But her eyes were peeled for any nuance on his face.

His shrug spoke volumes. “She’s nice enough.”

“You should take that girl out. She’s been working hard and doesn’t know anybody around here. Maybe take her to a movie. It’s the decent thing to do.”

“You think?” He stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles. “Maybe I will.”

She hid her smile and reached over to turn the radio back on. To her surprise, the Cubs had pulled ahead. The announcer was shouting, and in the background the fans were cheering. Nona’s grin blossomed and her blood raced in her veins. But in her heart she knew the excitement of victory she felt had nothing to do with the Cubs’ double play.

It was late, but the summer sky was still blue. Morgan stood outside the Palmetto Grande staring up at the sharp, perpendicular lines of the art deco theater. The structure seemed to him as incongruous in the Lowcountry setting as the enormous neon globes did against the azure sky. The retro theater flared out to encompass a public square of chic shops and manicured walkways, all bordered with newly
planted palms and tall nursery grasses that swayed in the evening breeze. Expensive cars were lined up to pick up moviegoers or drop off more, and farther back in the parking lot, more cars trolled for available spaces.

In his old jeans and a T-shirt, Morgan felt out of place among these folks dressed in trendy summer clothing. Young teens showing lots of skin called out like exotic plumed birds to one another. Older couples in island colors strolled leisurely by with time on their hands, some eating ice cream, some sipping coffee or wine at the outdoor café, and still others just stood in line for tickets. Most were here on vacation; the accents from the north and west sounded garbled in his ear. Time was, the only strange accents he heard around here were the mysterious cadence and rhythms of the Gullah.

Just beyond the theater, a new roadway with a steel guard-rail barely restrained the wild, unruly landscape of the wetlands. Overgrown, spindly loblolly pines framed the jagged-edged border, and beneath them, a shadowed wilderness of dense yaupon, wax myrtle and magnolias competed for the sun’s rays. The lizards, snakes and few birds of prey that survived in this area were compelled to fight fiercely for the scarce bits of habitat.

He’d been gone for too long, he thought. While he’d been carving out his own piece of the wilderness in the west, he’d turned his back on what was happening here at home. He’d thought the Lowcountry, with its slow pace and traditional ways, would never change. He’d thought wrong.

Morgan was struck, suddenly and fiercely, by what his father had been struggling to do all these years. Saving Sweetgrass was more than saving a family piece of land. Those three hundred acres between highway and marsh were an oasis of green space in this rolling desert of development.

Kristina came up behind him and monkeyed at his collar.

“Your label was out,” she said. “Good movie, huh?”

He turned to face her, blinking with the interruption of his thoughts. “Uh, yeah. It was okay.”

She searched his face. “You seem a million miles away.”

“More like years away.”

“What were you thinking?”

He shrugged, not able to put his thoughts neatly into words. “I can’t get over how much this place has changed,” he said simply. “I don’t recognize it.”

“Yeah? How so? It seems like your average upscale shopping center to me.”

“You don’t understand. When I lived here, we didn’t even have a movie theater, much less a multiplex theater with a dozen or more choices. We didn’t have a shopping center at all. We went downtown for movies. This used to be an open field full of sweetgrass. Now look around. There’s not a blade of sweetgrass on the lot. But I noticed that didn’t stop them from calling it Sweetgrass Center.”

“At least they did a nice job of it,” she said. “This is a pretty place and it’s outdoors, not a mall. And they still have sweetgrass basket stands along the road. That’s something.”

“I guess,” he conceded, feeling the tension in his chest ease a bit. He liked that she always tried to find the positive in any situation.

He turned to look at her, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. He’d grown accustomed to seeing her blue eyes fringed with pale lashes, the smattering of freckles across her nose, especially after she’d been in the garden or swimming. Her wild blond hair hung loose around her shoulders, but during the day while she worked, she dramatically reined it in with an elastic and bobby pins. It was her choice of clothing, however, that, to his eyes, defined her style. Tonight she wore a flimsy top of crushed Indian cot
ton, low-cut shorts and sandals. A pearlescent abalone shell strung on a leather strip hung tantalizingly between her rounded breasts.